This invention relates to an improvement in a floor control shift lever for use in an automatic transmission of a motor vehicle.
Hitherto, there is already known a floor control shift lever of this kind. In the known mechanism, a shift lever knob is attached to the upper end of the shift lever, and a knob button is slidably inserted in a blind hole provided to the shift lever knob. By pushing the knob button in the direction across the axial direction of the shift lever, a detent rod inserted in the shift lever is moved down against the function of a spring so as to release a stop pin radially projected from the detent rod from the engagement with a pre-shifted position on a detent plate and shift it to another desired position. However, the construction of the mechanism relative to the detent rod, the stop pin and the detent plate is complicated, since the release from the engagement between the stop pin and the detent plate must be done by pushing down the detent rod, while the engagement therebetween is to be maintained by the function of the spring pressing the detent rod upward. Especially, it is difficult to align the axis of the detent rod with the detent plate. Therefore, a space is inevitably required between the detent rod and the detent plate. Accordingly, the stress is concentrated on the engagement points between the stop pin projected from the detent rod and the detent plate, and inevitably, those points must be enough strengthened.